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Wow, I am frustrated. I have gained about 10 pounds in the past 60 days. I am 5'4 and I typically flux from 125-135 pounds max over my adult years. I have always exercised and have a good diet. I noticed I went up to 136-137 about 2 months ago and felt somewhat sluggish. I went to the doctor and all my tests- thyroid, etc were normal. So, I evaluated my diet (didn't do anything different from before) so I made myself an even better diet. I watched my calories...eating fruits, vegetable, and proteins. I starting doing the bootcamp at the gym, rather than running 2 miles daily as I had done for the past year to maintain my weight. I go to the bootcamp 3-4 times a weeks which has a calulated caloried burn of over 900 calories a session. It is cardio/pyrometrics/calistenics with about 5-8 lbs weights. I actually feel bulkier and really don't look leaner...and my clothes aren't getting any looser. I have noticed my muscles look more tone, but a bulky kind of toned. I am not eating more as they say when you work out. I drink a protein shake daily, veggies, fruits, salads, almonds, grilled chicked, tuna. It is pretty basic. So, I hopped on the scale 2 weeks ago and weigh 142 pounds. Got on today, no change. What must I do to drop the weight back down. My workouts change weekly at the bootcamp-muscle confusion. I don't get it. I am also taking b12 injection once a week.

It is quite strange because I actually am keeping a very accurate food diary (I am a nurse and used to teach nutrition classes). My calorie intake before the weight gain was much higher (I just started doing the diary over a month ago). I actually ate more then and really didn't pay special attention to the small details.An example of my typical day (which is pretty much the same every day) equals to about 1580 calories. This is the consisent median number daily. This includes drinks, snacks, that piece of lettuce, etc. My exercise burn has actually been more with 900 calories a session in comparison to the past of only running 2 miles a day and burning about 400 calories or so. The only changes are adding weights (low weight/high rep), the b12 shots, and I notice my periods have been off.

If there is no medical reason to explain your situation, it can only be down to your diet.

Most people underestimate the calories they have actually eaten by as much as 40%, even when keeping a food diary. It's possible that you are also underestimating the calories you consume.

When it comes to calorie counting, you need to count absolutely everything, or not bother. From obvious things such as bread, pasta, chicken, to less obvious things like raisins, tomato, even a single lettuce leaf. Given that a leaf of lettuce can contain less than 3 or 4 calories, it might sound pointless, but you can not rule out the possibility that you underestimate until you try counting everything for at least a few weeks. If you eat an apple, weigh it first. A 150g apple has under 80 calories, while a 200g apple has over 100 calories. That is a difference of over 20 calories, the equivalent of two lumps of sugar.

If you are eating toast with butter, you need to count the calories in the butter, whether you have 8g per slice, 10g, or 12g, there is going to be a significant difference. The butter I use (Lurpak Lighter), 16g (enough for 2 small pieces of bread) contains 86.4 calories. If I were to have bigger slices of bread I might use 24g of butter, which is 129.6 calories. A difference of 43.2 calories from the butter alone, just because of the bread I am using.

I use whatever bread we have in the house, and I use however much butter I need to cover my bread, but as long as I weigh the butter I can adjust something else in my diet that day; don't have mayo on my lunch, have a few less chips for dinner, avoid putting sugar in my tea etc.

A set of digital kitchen scales are the best thing you can buy. If you get one with a 'zero' function, you can take the lid off your butter, place it on the scales, hit 'zero', then use the butter until the digital display reads 'minus 10 grams' for example. I use my scales to weigh pretty much everything; minced meat, sugar, mayo, honey, brown sauce, salad dressing, grapes, bananas, yoghurt, chocolate etc.

If you're interested, here are the ones I use: http://www.brabantia.com/uk/cooking-dini...

Hmm that is tough. Everybody gains differently when it comes to working out and everyone's bodies aren't the same when it comes to what is the best things to eat when working out or even anytime. It sounds like your fitness schedule and eating habits are not bad at all. However are you eating and drinking protein shakes when you are hungry or just because you feel like since you are so active you need to replenish? I believe that the number one thing is water for replenishing but if you have eating when your not really hungry you may be in-taking more than you need. However I know how hungry you get when you workout and burn some many calories. The key is moderation when eating. Small meals. Another possibility is that your taking in too much protein causing your muscles to bulk up instead of stay lean. As I said before everyone will build differently your body may not need the amount of protein your feeding it. I am no nutritionist so the advice you can take it or leave it but I am a personal trainer and I believe that the best way to burn fat and build lean muscle is short intensive cardio based workouts. These are the types of workouts that I personally do on a daily basis and I would not consider myself bulky but toned and strong. A good thing to check out would be the blood type diet. I heard this from my doctor and have heard that a lot of people use it and it does wonders. Pretty much its saying that people with a certain blood type does best eating certain foods and avoiding certain foods. That their body will function more properly now I have not done enough research on this to be able to say I am a true believer I tried it for a while but for my blood type it suggested to rule out meat and as much as I work out I wanted a better source of protein. However it did make sense to me because some of the characteristics they gave of people with the bloodtype I had. Also I have always believed that if your craving something that you usually don't crave that is your bodies way of saying it needs it. For example I am not a big milk drinker but sometimes I will crave a glass out of no where. Anyway i'm ranting now so I hope that this rant of somewhat advice may help you!